Industry news

The top 10 drug launches of 2017

Carly Helfand / FiercePharma

After an unusually slow year for new drug approvals—the FDA greenlighted just 22 meds in 2016—it remains to be seen whether drugmakers can do much better in 2017. One thing’s for sure, though: No matter what total the industry tallies up this year, the crop will bring some would-be blockbusters and market disrupters. 

M&A is off to a hot start in 2017; Too bad we can’t say the same for gender parity

John Carroll / Endpoints News

Two big M&A deals Thursday, the $30 billion acquisition of Actelion and Celgene’s pact to acquire newborn Delinia for $300 million upfront, are raising hopes that 2017 will be rich in buyouts. 

Europe faces steep price increases for some old cancer drugs

Ben Hirschler / Reuters

European prices for some off-patent cancer drugs have risen by more than 100 percent in the past five years, with two cases of hikes exceeding 1,000 percent, according to data presented at a medical conference on Saturday.

Want to make a pharma app people will actually use? Put yourself in patients’ shoes, consultant says

Beth Snyder Bulik / FiercePharmaMarketing

All apps are not created equal. That's especially true in pharma, where traditional practices haven't always included a patient perspective. That’s changing, however, and as many pharma companies shift to patient-centric marketing models, so should app development strategies, says industry consultant Gregg Fisher. 

PhRMA highlights hardworking scientists, cutting-edge meds in new reputation-saving effort

Carly Helfand / FiercePharma

“Bold” isn’t just a buzzword for Allergan anymore. It’s now a key part of the message the entire biopharma industry is pushing to save its reputation.

Pharma's latest idea for getting drug info in front of docs? Give them a single login

Beth Snyder Bulik / FiercePharmaMarketing

Six big pharma companies are joining forces to create a one-step login for doctors and healthcare providers to get drug information. The newly formed Align Biopharma group includes Allergan, AstraZeneca, Biogen, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Pfizer, along with life sciences software solutions company Veeva Systems.

U.K. hatches plan to attract R&D investment, as EMA exit likely

Nick Paul Taylor / FierceBiotech

The U.K. is holding a series of meetings with the CEOs of top-10 pharma companies in a bid to understand how it can attract R&D investments. Ministers have hatched the plan to use the flux created by Brexit to reshape the U.K. as a more appealing location for R&D.

U.K. offers deal to drugmakers to boost productivity

Nick Paul Taylor / FierceBiotech

The U.K. government wants to strike a deal to boost the productivity of the life science sector. Officials have called on business and academia to team up and pitch proposals for how the increasingly interventionist government can fix the problems they face.

Russian scientists unveil molecule to fight chemotherapy-resistant cancer

Marchmont Innovation News

A new anti-tumor compound that is said to be able to fight even chemotherapy-resistant cancers has been developed in Moscow. The team behind the effort, led by Prof. Alexander Kiselyov from Phystech University (MIPT), brought together scientists from the Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry, the Koltzov Institute of Developmental Biology, and Immune Pharmaceuticals, a private international company. 

Facing a deepening political crisis, PhRMA launches a major counterattack against its legion of critics

John Carroll / Endpoints News

Under the most heated political attack the drug industry has ever faced on Capitol Hill, the lobbying powerhouse PhRMA is rolling out its most ambitious public relations campaign in its history.